t we cannot observe
the progress which the kingdom makes. Sometimes, and in some places, it
seems to recede; but when the end comes it will be seen that every step
of apparent retreat was the couching in preparation for another spring.
The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of
his Christ. The captive's chains shall be broken, whether they bind more
directly the body or the soul, although the ancient political
organizations of Europe, and the more recent fabrics of America, should
be torn asunder and tossed away in the process, as foam is tossed from
the crest of a wave upon the shore. "Thou shalt break them with a rod of
iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Be wise now
therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the
Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be
angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a
little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him" (Ps. ii. 9-12).

2. Converted men, women, and children are let into openings of corrupt
humanity, and hidden in its heart. There they cannot lie still: they
stir, and effervesce, and inoculate the portions with which they are in
closest contact. In this respect the lesson is the same with that which
is taught in those other short parables of Jesus,--"Ye are the light of
the world. Ye are the salt of the earth."

Nor is the conception essentially different from that of Christ or his
word dropped into the lump of humanity; for Christians have no life and
no expansive power, except in as far as Christ dwells in their hearts
by faith. They are vessels which contain the truth, and when these
vessels are hidden under the folds of families and larger communities,
the word of life, which is within them, touches and tells upon their
neighbours.

The most recent experience of the Church exhibits the kingdom spreading
like leaven, as vividly, perhaps, as any experience since apostolic
times. By contact with one soul, already fervid with new life, other
souls, hitherto dead, become fervid too. One sinner saved, his heart
burning within his breast, as he consciously communes with his Saviour,
touches a meeting and sets it all aglow; the prayer-meeting thus moved
touches the congregation and throws its settled lees into an unwonted
and violent commotion; this assembly, all throbbing with the cry, What
must we do to be saved? infects a city; and the city